To protect your computer from various external threats, you don't have to waste money on heavily advertised and expensive antivirus software. There are currently a number of excellent products on the market that offer powerful protection against the most common threats for free and have additional useful features.

1. AVG Antivirus Free 

AVG offers effective and free antivirus protection with a very low load on your computer. Among the advantages are also fast system scanning and very flexible and easy-to-understand program settings. AVG copes not only with viruses that are in its database, but also with those that it has not encountered before.

This antivirus does not have built-in browser protection, but it can be installed separately, in the form of a plug-in. AVG offers an excellent function, thanks to which you can restore the work of a computer that cannot even boot properly due to viruses. However, this antivirus also has its drawbacks. It will constantly pester you with its advertising, which eventually becomes very annoying. 

2 Avira Free Antivirus

Avira is an excellent German antivirus. It is able to cope with a huge amount of malware without abusing system resources and has a simple and friendly user interface. In addition, the free version of Avira will protect you from phishing sites and viruses that block your computer and demand a ransom for unblocking. Finally, you get the opportunity to use a branded VPN with 500 MB of data traffic per month. The main drawback, again, is the call to buy the full version.

3. Avast Free Antivirus

Avast is worth paying attention to simply because it has a very wide audience - more than 400 million people already use this antivirus.

The latest version of Avast has a unique feature - a special "silent" mode, thanks to which you will not be bothered by pop-ups during the game. And, most importantly, this mode is turned on automatically. In addition, Avast has a built-in password manager - a necessary thing in our time.

Another additional feature is an Internet connection analyzer, which will help you find out whether your local network is secure and whether there are any threats to its components from the outside.

4. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition

Despite the fact that this name may not be familiar to you, the free Bitdefender Antivirus is one of the most reliable antivirus tools. It has a very attractive interface and is perfect for those who want programs to work on their own, without any user intervention. Therefore, instead of a lot of settings, the user gets a product that copes with all the problems on its own, and does not constantly bother the user with various issues.

BitDefender also easily copes with fraud, preventing malicious people from stealing your passwords or credit card details on fake websites.

5. Sophos Home

Sophos Home is a relatively new player on the market. In addition to antivirus protection and an anti-phishing tool in the browser, it offers another very important tool - a parental control system. This is not a new feature of antivirus software, but it is usually only available in paid versions. In the case of Sophos Home, you get it in the free version.

In addition, using a special control panel, you can control all (up to 10) copies of the Sophos Home program you have installed directly from your web browser. This means that you can monitor the status of the antivirus installed on your computers, read reports on scans, change settings, prohibit something with the parental control system, etc. from anywhere where there is an Internet connection. This is very useful if you are the only advanced computer user in your family who has to regularly clean computers from viruses.